Review: Survivor, "It Comes Down To This | Season 42, Episode 13

I’m a week late to the Survivor 42 finale given I was out of the country, but it was sort of hard to avoid the result given the circumstances: Maryanne winning was the result that was most likely to break through on social media, because it’s just…so winning and wonderful.

But I didn’t know how it happened, and that was fun to watch play out. In the abstract, feeling like Maryanne had worked her way into a strong position after the Omar vote, I believed that she would have had to have won the immunity challenge at the Final 4, because I didn’t believe that anyone would have chosen to bring her to the end. But it turns out I underestimated how much the players were convinced that Mike’s social game was a danger, and couldn’t have predicted that Romeo would break through to win the last challenge and effectively have control not over his own chances to win—which were zero either way—but over who would have the easiest path there.

Romeo’s choice to take Maryanne was something I really wanted the reunion show to unpack (it didn’t, because Romeo did not matter), because my interpretation was that he basically was casting his own vote for Maryanne to win. Because while I know that the jury all claims they were undecided going into the final tribal council, and that a few were even leaning toward Mike, I would argue that as much as it depended on Maryanne to execute with a strong performance, the facts were in her favor after the one-two punch of the Omar vote and what happened at Final 5. Because there, Maryanne was gifted the Idol Reveal mic drop moment that solidifies her narrative, at which Mike gifting his idol to Maryanne gave her the power to play with her heart and save Lindsay but she chose not to. It’s a moment that pulls together both the social and strategic, and dovetails beautifully with the stories she told in both sections of the final tribal.

But as much as the facts were on her favor, she really did nail those big moments, and controlled her storytelling throughout. Admittedly, she was always going to have a better handle on the specifics of Survivor than Mike, but she was measured on the questions where she needed to be (like in thinking about the physical dimensions of the game) and drove hard at the points that mattered most. And while there’s a suggestion that Mike maybe “lost” with his answers—and he had a poor performance—I literally don’t know if he could have sold his game successfully given how much he seemed unable to conceive of his strategic moves within the framework of his “principled” game. Maryanne might have occasionally lacked social self-awareness, but she never lost her sense of Survivor awareness, and it’s deeply satisfying for someone’s knowledge of the game to be the thing that helps them tell their story and become one of the most satisfying winners in a long time.

Compared to Survivor 41, this was undoubtedly the better result, both in terms of the final competitors but also just in terms of the vibes. The on-island reunion was still a waste of time, but outside of Mike’s blank stare as he wonders what happened and Romeo’s complete non-existence, it was more fun to see this group hang out, and to see their reaction to being able to congratulate Maryanne in real time. It’s still a pity that we don’t get the chance to see how elements like Jonathan’s misogyny would have been put under a microscope more if the players had seen the edit—I know Lindsay has talked about it in her exit interviews, but being part of the text would have been ideal, and yet certainly maybe not something Probst would have let play out.

Overall, it’s an incredible bounce back from last season, but a lot of the things that caused problems then are still present, and you wonder how many of them will survive to Survivor 43 despite some of the inherent problems they create in general, and would have created more if things hadn’t worked out with this particular cast. In other words, the chaos of “Monster” Survivor means that I’m not yet suggesting the show is about to enter some kind of golden age based on one strong season with a great winner—too much chaos is ahead for that.

Stray observations

• Romeo’s “I’m going to be wearing the tiara” audio was clearly from the start of the game, but he did later claim that if people are rewarding the best player it would be him, so maybe he was that delusional, or else they basically forced him to say it.
• Maryanne knowing the names to all the challenges really is superfan energy, and we love to see it.
• I’m sure that everyone did exit interviews but to be honest I haven’t read them all season, so if something came up in one that people are super interested in let me know in the comments.
• Thanks to everyone who’s been reading these, and for those who’ve joined in the comments—even if you haven’t, I hope it’s been a nice companion for you, and I’m looking forward to being back on the beat in the fall with the caveat I teach in the evenings on Wednesdays so they’ll be a little later.